


Yours, Poe Dameron

by 13letters



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Episode VIII: The Last Jedi (2017)
Genre: "you know I'm an Oggsford man", 1930's, A Love Story Told in Letters, Alternate Universe - WWII, Boston College, Dialogue Heavy, Differing Social Classes as Obstacles, F/M, Great Britain, Growing Up, Letters, Love Story, Mentions of WWI, Orphanages, Pacifism, Pain, Paris 1943, Prose and Poetry, Romance, Suffering, non-linear storytelling
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-12-30
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-02-24 00:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 4
Words: 7,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13201731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/13letters/pseuds/13letters
Summary: I'm so sorry,she later reads, his words messily penned from an ocean another world away.I didn't know how to tell you I would be leaving. In my mind, the truth is the first I tell you upon seeing you that day, and in my mind, you're here with me.





	1. one

**Author's Note:**

> Quite frankly, the almost-WWII drama no one asked for -- a bit of a different take on these two since sometimes, the only option available is to write the love story yourself! I love these two and literally cry about them all the time. I hope you loves enjoy! <3

.

The differences between them whither down to the frayed edges of a homespun tunic, dirt-smudged fingertips and bruised knuckles, four years, eighty-nine days, thirteen hours, and six minutes. 

The life of crystalline chandeliers and each sunrise taken in through delicate lace curtains, finely painted porcelain dishes with polished silver spoons and decadent supper menus. Ornate, handcrafted wooden fixtures, a carved stone fireplace crafted by the callused, most expensive Irish hands in all the world. Fur shams and refined settees, stiff leather and lavish silks and smooth muslin and golden adornments. 

When rain glittered upon the cobblestones which lined the entry to his family estate, the road shone like the same carefully polished silver he had been dining with since his infancy. The heavy brocade curtains lying adjacent to Picasso's works in his chambers disclosed the extensive, picturesque grounds that were his sanctuary, prison, escape, kingdom, battlefield: all, each depending on the day of the week or the severity of the effects of age upon a boy growing to a man. 

He has wanted for nothing, least of all love, and she shares her bed in the orphanage with three other girls. 

Her life is the angry chime of the bell tower, her own sentence each morning she awakens with a start and dresses in the dark to cold, splintered floorboards and thin, simple clothing. Her daily chores of upkeep and feminine novelties are to be considered a penance, a small token of the gratitude that is contingent upon having this protection and these resources available to ensure her safety and protection. 

From boiling water to launder clothes, an oven which billows black smoke from it as if it is a factory barge or one of the mills the other girls swear they will run to in search of liberty and employment. She is told she is expected to be grateful for the little she has so the godless woman who keeps the orphans' charge can save any penny possible from a day's wanting. She is told to be grateful she at least has this, and so she isn't bitter -- not truly, because they _are_ right. Her lot in life could be worse. 

The difference between them in simple terms: threads of golden light which make all the world better and beautiful and bright. Contentment tied together with obligation like smooth wrapping paper kept with a pretty string, the present this luminous stretch ahead like life impending -- time's sweet, slow stretch throughout distance like the laborious pool of golden tendrils of honey pulled sticky from a jar, _perhaps_ , Poe will tell her. 

"Perhaps only wanting to live will make it so. Honey," he'll call her, " _Rey_. Sunshine, please stay with me," he will beg as he presses his lips to her palm's lifeline. Holds her hand against his cheek so the scruff of his stubble rasps against her knuckles and could make her cold lips smile like she might have once upon a kinder, brighter world; he never meant for any of this. 

"Please," he'll whisper as he touches her pale cheeks, her red, _red_ lips and cries, "Sweetheart, _no_ ," with conviction and anger anew, heartache in utter agony breaking his bones and causing his hands to tremor with pain, with the goddamned _life_ that marks the greatest difference between them now: his perfect Rey _was_. "You can't take her from me. Give her back, please, _please_ , God. _God. Rey._ "

.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him, sixteen and -- and utterly _devastating_. Each inch of her strong frame and firm personality completely devastates him, 'cause when she smiles, oh, Christ, he's -- he's lost. 

"I wanted to see you," he explains, sounding so plaintive as she squints her eyes at him and scrunches her nose up. "Before," he clarifies, taking off his top hat so he can rake his hand through his curls all devil-may-care. He knows he looks better for it, and she's fully aware of it, too, because she outright _grins_ within a second. 

"Come around back," she tells him. "The other girls will be watching from the window above the kitchen." 

And sure enough, he glances up to the soot-covered glass where he can barely make out three equally jealous, delighted, and inquisitive eyes peering down at them. "Still the same," he murmurs. "Are they still hopelessly in love with me?"

"They wouldn't be if they had the chance to properly know you," she snarks, ducking her head and laughing as she grabs at her basket of linens, starts off without waiting for him since routine and habit have predicted he'll follow her. "Or perhaps they would," she appeases, shrugging.

"Perhaps you would. Might I help?"

"With the laundry?"

"I am here," he offers. He's never refused before.

"Don't -- don't sit there," she sighs quietly, meaning the poor, dirty, little chair set up by the rather sad-looking tree. "It hasn't seen a washing in too many months. You'll stain your clothes."

"I've never minded," he contradicts, but before he can figuratively forget it all while he flips his tails, makes to set on the grimy surface, she reaches out for him quickly.

Where she's grabbed onto his wrist, the fabric of his coat has begun to wrinkle. It's symbolic, somehow, and has been because each year has made it more obvious. What class and riches have valued in their respective lives. 

"Your mother would mind," she reasons gently, like it isn't a problem, not really; it doesn't _have_ to hurt. "Better not, yeah?"

"Yes," he agrees. And against her hesitant look, he bends, picks a sheet from the basket and offers her half so they might hang it over a line. "How has your day been?"

"It's improved since this morning."

"Much improved?" he grins, stealing a quick look at her. "You know, I'm betting those girls always assume the worst."

The sky is perpetually gray. It's the promise of rain with none of the fall. "They do. It's an inquisition each time I come back inside after meeting you."

"Inquisition," he repeats, 'cause thank goodness. "That's a fancy word," and this is how he can tell her that he has to go. He's away to college in Boston where he can pick up other words to write to her, he's so sorry.

"What? You mean, it's a fancy word for me?" she challenges with her mirth so similar to ire. Her arms crossed in a reaction so feminine that's the raw balance of a child's temper and a woman's scorn; they've -- they've both had to grow up. But her smile is still glittering, and her blouses are still threadbare and faded, and she doesn't quite look like she means that she loves him, but it's _something_ for only a second. An instant of light that softens her grin to a smile so sweet it's utterly unthinkable that he's already older than she'll ever live to be. 

"I meant, you're very intelligent," he teases, watching her jaw drop in mock-offense at the lie. "The brightest girl I know, sunshine."

"Oh, please."

"I mean it," he laughs. "Now tell me something, Rey."

"Mister Dameron," she acquiesces, nodding so demurely he rolls his eyes.

"Have you eaten at all today?"

Her inhale is so slight. "Poe," she warns. 

Jesus. He honestly can't _blasted_ believe this. "Yesterday?"

"The children were hungrier than I am," she tries to explain calmly and so slowly; he's beginning to pace and looks each bit the aristocrat's son when he looks this severe, _oh_. "I'm managing all right."

"You're going to bed hungry!"

"And?" she harshly whispers. Each raised octave of his voice could bring the Lady outside. "The House has run out of funding. I know how long I can go hungry. The children do not, and they shouldn't."

"You very well shouldn't," he practically erupts. "No new children were supposed to be sent to this orphanage."

"More will come when spaces are free," she tells him, even though that thought's unthinkable. In the attic, one bed sleeps seven girls. And that doesn't include the mice. "My space will soon be free. I've only been allowed to remain this long because I watch over the children."

At once, everything in him seems to fail. "You've never told me this."

"Was I to burden you with this news? Poe." Granted, she does laugh. It truly wasn't funny, however. "It isn't something you need to worry about."

"What are your plans? Where will you stay?"

"I will manage," she whispers, her brown eyes flashing in panic to get him to quiet, too. "As I always have."

"Rey."

"Don't worry," she insists, but how can he not? The first they met, she was being beaten by older ragamuffin boys in an alley who wouldn't take pity on her for stealing one of their apples. "I don't know when that will be. It might not be for months yet."

"Let me help," he tells her quietly. "I can inquire about employment opportunities, anything respectable which would allow for your independence, then you could begin immediately."

"Poe," she sighs, wiping her hands on the ratty folds of her brown skirt. "I can't ask you to do that."

"You didn't."

"And I couldn't. I don't want to leave the children yet," she murmurs, for each of their young, chubby, scared faces she can treat better than she experienced herself. 

"The last I want to think of you as is destitute because of your attachment to them."

"Who else do they have? I know children might not ever be adopted, Poe. I was never adopted."

"But there's opportunity for betterment. Yours. At least let me give you --"

"No," she interrupts him. As he still pats down his pockets for his currency, though, brushes his fingers over the silver buttons of his vest to retrieve bills from the inner lining, she tries again more firmly with her cheeks beginning to burn. "Poe, thank you, but _no_. I won't take your money."

His mouth lilts upwards as if she should think nothing of it. He won't and never will. "Take it. Why refrain? Are you too proud?"

"Yes," she startles him by saying, emphatic and ashamed. "Look at me." For unnecessary emphasis, she raises and shakes her worn skirt in both her hands. "I don't ask for charity. Clearly."

"You live in a house of charity, Rey."

"A gentlemen wouldn't humiliate a lady like this," she accuses, unable to feel anything now but hurt starting to well up behind her eyes. From deep within her brittle bones. "You don't have to _mock_ me."

His eyes widen in alarm. "I never meant to imply --"

"Honestly, we're going to have to realize we're from far too different places."

"-- I thought any lesser of you. I mean to help you, Rey."

"Before what?" she asks him since really, that's all that's left in the aftermath of misunderstanding and hurt taken too far.

"Beg pardon?"

"You wanted to see me again before what?" She straightens as if it's involuntary, smooths a stray curl of her hair behind her ear.

"Does it genuinely matter?" he wonders, because he can't bring himself to hurt her anymore. 

All the same, she looks unsure. All the same, she retrieves a pillow sham from the bin and tries not to feel as sorry as she looks -- she had tried to pretty herself up when he turned down the cobble to the orphanage, anything to make herself seem more comely since one of the girls had read in one of their French romances about a man who took his love away in the quiet of the night from the cruel, lonely boardinghouse where she felt beholden to. "I suppose it doesn't."

.

 _I'm so sorry,_ she later reads, his words messily penned from an ocean another world away. 

_I didn't know how to tell you I would be leaving. In my mind, the truth is the first I tell you upon seeing you that day, and in my mind, you're here with me to chase away the misery and the loneliness._

_An American holiday is just as bleak as it sounds, and I'm away for two long years at Boston's College of Business. Father doesn't have much to smile about anymore, but he was happy to see me turn away from as dangerous a lifestyle as he chose. We both know the gas from Ypres still cause his hands to shake, and I suppose this is a small comfort: the purpose of the War and the aftermath. A better life._

_I truly hope this finds you well. I'm to be given an extensive absence over Christmas, and nothing would make me happier than to see you if you aren't cross with me. Especially if you're cross with me._

_I'm sorry, Rey._

_Love,_ he agonized over closing with, scribbled words of _fondly_ and _cordially_ replaced by _love_ until he settled upon that which meant the most: 

_Yours,_

_Poe Dameron_

.


	2. two

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, sunbeams, for your support! I've really wanted to write something for these two for a while. Hope you enjoy!

.

_Rey,_

_You would hate them. You would hate all of them._

_I've never before seen pacifism painted so elusively upon the faces of the ignorant and those stricken with fear and by submission. So many civilians who preach peace and impartiality rode the bus with their gazes quietly turned down away from the black smoke which billowed up high along the skyline. It was plain to see just what Switzerland's pacifism had cost these people._

_I believe it's cost England more. I've attended the rallies and the protests. I'm writing to you from a trench, now, below the open sky, and even if I've sworn that this was never the intention, sunshine, as I grapple with the intention of duty and honor upon the connotation of integrity, the printed card I hold for the War Resisters' International is stained with blood._

_I've considered desertion. I have._

_I knew I could never, though, when dissent boils to the same rage I felt upon Poland's invasion the autumn I left for the States. This is war is the same as all wars; I renounce this war, and I swore the words. I thank God I wasn't sent to France, for if my broken and bloodied body was sent from the shores of Dunkirk to you -- Rey._

_I can't bear how much I miss you, love._

_Yours,_

_Poe Dameron_

.

 _Dear Poe,_ she writes on September 1, 1939, as the portrait of love forlorn itself: candlelight illuminating her pages as well as his own tenderly folded sheets of pressed white paper; her hair swept up and loose, brown curls caught up with the fire's glow; her nightgown pale and threadbare and thin against the open window before her desk's chilled night air. 

_Any explanation of your departure would have been better than this written farewell_ , she admonishes him. And even if she were to confess that she cried when she read his words, he wouldn't be in the States to receive her letter upon its sending. His mother will want him close to home after conflict spreads from Germany to the far stretches of the rest of the world, so Poe will take his place in Oggsford, and it will be much, much worse for him there than in Boston.

_I would have liked to see you once more, you know, before you left. I might have been kinder. I might have practiced more honesty. I do miss you when you leave._

"For the love of God," Beth exasperates, sitting up from their bed with a huff. "Close the window, Rey. We're freezing."

"Just a moment," Rey soothes. Absently, she presses her frayed sleeve to her damp forehead. "I've almost finished my letter."

"Please," whines Priscilla's small voice. "Finish it tomorrow and shut the window? I can scarcely feel my feet. Come to bed, Rey."

"Alright," Rey hushes, setting down her pen. The letter can wait; her dizzying, breathless thoughts can wait. "I'm coming. I'm coming."

"You're so warm," Priscilla murmurs after a minute. When Rey's blown out the candle and all, crossed the creaking floor to the small mattress where her bedfellow waits in places next to her own worry. 

Rey knows how feverish she's feeling. God, help her. "Your hands are like ice," she sighs, wincing back this sigh that changes to a laugh when Priscilla curls up and presses her knees into Rey's stomach. She tries to calm her heart rate with slow, even breaths -- the girl's shivering soon slows, too, even though Rey feels worse off for it, stifling and sweltering. 

This can't be an attack of the fever. She has so much to live for, suddenly, with this something that's only hers in the quiet recesses of a private moment and a tender look. A closing signed with love: _yours_.

.

"Please," Poe had skeptically teased. "I'll keep a cross close to my heart tonight. Scandalize me."

"You don't have to say it like that," she countered, because _oh_ , him with the brownest eyes she's ever seen, the rugged dimples of his grin. "Heaven's sake. We're in a Cathedral."

"The priest is blind. He can't see us in the same pew."

"Yes, and he's blind, not deaf," she absolutely does _not_ laugh. God above. Send Peter or Paul or even bloody Judas; crucify her here where she sits. "He can hear you murmur things which sound compromising."

"Upon your honor?" he asks, feeling bold enough to grin even more broadly. "I'd never."

"Upon yours," she laughs. "It's worth much more. You know," she begins, now with this much more quiet, much more elusive tone that betrays each vulnerable emotion which threatens to capsize her, "they say you're proposing to the Lady Matthews soon."

"And you're listening?"

"I do hear she would make quite the match. I've seen her a couple times in Hadley's shop. She's very beautiful," she says nonchalantly. 

"And terrible at holding a conversation with. Don't you remember how bored I was after the party?"

"Well, _yes_."

"Yes," he inflects shortly, looking down at _The Bible_ in his lap like he's actually attempting to read it. "It's no wonder I came looking for you, honestly. In comparison to the people I had met there -- the pretenses. The lies."

"The nobility," she contradicts, for it's easier to remember that fact like it's a shield when her cheeks are starting to tinge this pink. "You don't have to spare my feelings. I know your parents had intended for you to find love or at least a fiancée among the ladies."

"Oh, I did find love," he says. "Down by the banquet table, I found love most true _and_ my soul. Would you curse me if I destined the chocolate cake to you?"

"Not while inside Chirrut's church."

"The decadence, honey. I would have died happy," he practically moans, his voice going deep. 

"But can anyone actually die happy when they're expecting death?" she wonders, looking at him like.. like these two souls of a like mind _might_ manage a happy ending. "You would know you're missing decades. Years, _seconds_ of the future. When you know what all you're about to miss --"

"It was a figure of speech," he frowns. "I didn't mean it literally."

"But I do," she reasons as if it's a lighthearted joke. Her sixteen year old self with the book of _Luke_ open and her mind only thinking that she desperately doesn't want to die. "There's no happiness in it."

"Then a peaceful death. A much deserved death, all things considered."

"Such as?"

"Suffering," he shrugs. The idle, noncommittal gesture his mum hates. "Loss. Having to keep absolutely terrible company at parties, let me tell you," he snarks. 

Against her better judgment, she laughs in bright, loud, ridiculously happy peals of heaven-sent joy. It's so simple when it's unspeakably easy to forget, so the rain coming down softly on the stained windows, the candles burning reminiscently of eternal life, she slaps at his arm gently with her hand. 

And he glances down to her fingers there, enough sense in him to just _take_ her hand, almost, hold her fingers to his in soft clarify that whispers of the truth in it: speak up if you love someone, "Rey."

"Old Testament or New?" Chirrut asks them respectively. 

"New," she answers, the same instant Poe reflexively and confidently states, "Old."

"There's nothing wrong with the Old," Chirrut supposes. His knees creak when he sits upon the pew in front of them, as old and fragile as this church he built once upon his youth with Baze Malbus's bare hands. They've both got their stories to tell. "I don't think it's anymore of the past compared to the New Testament. If David danced before the Lord, perhaps so did Thaddeus. Or John."

"The Baptist?"

"The enraptured," Chirrut says. "How could he not be?"

"To be fair," Poe begins since he's too full of honor to mislead him, "I had absolutely no intention of reading through the _Exodus_ with Rey."

"You never have," Chirrut points out so nonchalantly with a smile, just carving Poe up to bits, alright. 

. 

_My Darling Girl,_ he begins since he hasn't seen her in three days and this letter shall reach her within four and she'll positively _delight_ in it; the tender effects of his life upon hers. 

_I am settled in my room and was already hailed as a worldly man by my new peers. Compared to the American bear of a man who quite proudly referred to himself as "Snap" and lived to laugh and jest and learn, Ben is a quiet friend by comparison._

_I've never met someone before who was not instantly taken with my personality or overcome with the need for immediate friendship. But this Ben Organa, I don't think he_

"Poe."

"Yes," Poe starts, sitting up from where he hunched over his writing. 

"Armie and a few others are going to take the girls dancing tonight," he says, standing in such a way that Poe can't quite interpret it as an invitation or not.

"Yes?"

Ben just kinda shrugs. Then he straightens up from the door frame and roughs his hands through his hair, doesn't ask before he takes Poe's bed since there's no where else to sit and his mum taught him that the impartiality of door frames was a rude place to be. It doesn't bother Poe, anyways; he just turns to better face Ben's glum, stern look. 

"Yes?" he asks again, real gentle. "Ben, buddy, you can talk to me, you know?"

"I know," Ben easily dismisses. That was never in question. "I told him you and I had plans, so we didn't want to go."

"I've been told I have two left feet anyways."

"Hux and them, they're calling themselves _fascists_ , Poe," Ben just -- just outright _says_ like he could curse them. His hands are fighting to keep still; his jaw is locked. "It's happening again, isn't it? War," he unnecessarily explains. "The Second World War."

Poe can't just admit it -- not yet. The blast of a car's horn outside their window is like the worst foreshadowing -- the fucking Blitz. "There's a lecture tomorrow," Poe swallows, meeting Ben's eyes with the heavy implication of it. _I renounce this war._ "Would you like to attend with me?"

"Would you bring me flowers?" Ben cracks, smiling for the first time since September 9, 1939, all of sixteen days ago. It's still a rather hesitant thing. 

_I don't think he intended for friendship, yet he's found himself in my room all the same. We share mutual disgust with the boys who have the audacity to declare themselves Fascist. We played chess for two hours and spoke of our homes and of you._

_He agrees with how much I've come to hate myself with regret for the last time I met you; I should have kissed you, he insists with my own self-reprimand, and forgive my boldness, Rey, but my regrets do not end there._

_I hope to see you soon._

_Yours,_

_Poe Dameron_

_._


	3. three

_My Darling Girl,_

_I think of you often. Of your mouth and your hands and your shoulders._

_I think of you, and I think of something profane, something lewd, and something profound. I'm reading Tolstoy, and I wish I were with you in the chapel or garden or lake; your pink gown and your red lips give me a pause in memory, and if I were more reckless in youth, I might have married you before I left._

_But you were sixteen, and I was a coward. Loving and being in love are two very different things, and love does make me reckless since I'm quite certain I will post this letter despite the impropriety. If this is all very untoward, then please disregard the entire effect of my life upon yours -- and if not, if you're grinning like I hope you might be, curled beneath your linens as you clutch these words with that laughing crease between your brows a testament to my wit and your charm, then let's get married next holiday. We'll honeymoon in Venice, and I'll feed you cheese and grapes in between kisses and laughter and sundried gasps._

_How about it, honey? Sweetheart, I miss you._

_Yours,_

_Poe Dameron_

.

_Dear Rey,_

_I'm quite honored to meet you. My legal name is Poe Dameron, and I live just across the way -- past the street outside your girls' home and left onto the street by the bakery, and then straight on until the road gives way to green and the houses are lined up identically. Ours is the off-white one. It's too big for only three people._

_Maybe you could visit sometime. I've seen where you live even though my mum was sore with me after. I wasn't pretending to be a street urchin, I was just chasing the fat alley cat before the steelworker got to him, you see, and my clothes were dirtied when I fell._

_Also, did you eat the cat?_

_I've never seen a girl punch anybody before, even if just the rude boy who was going to smack at you for stealing his apple. I was very impressed at you. By you, I mean._

_I mean, I want to be your friend. Do you want to be mine? Mother said I couldn't visit the orphanage, so do write back._

_Good-bye. Yours,_

_Poe Dameron_

.

Three months of his silence, and Rey applies her red lipstick like armor, wears out one pair of hose and then another, twists the silver band Ben finally gave to her around her finger and goes through the motions: the mundane, the fear, the systematic sexism, the panic, the loss. 

She cleans dishes and mops the floors even though Leia insists she doesn't have to, that she's practically family because she _knows_ how hard this has been -- the negotiation of payment and love like an obligation. What was meant as a place to barely get by has become something akin to a home because when Poe brought her to his childhood house and in with his parents, she could see so little of the figures he described as once so full of conviction and fire.

His mother couldn't stand to look at him since he had enlisted, and his dad -- God. All she could remember was the sadness in the eyes of the fifteen year old boy who once murmured from her window that his father used to smile. That his parents once knew more victory than loss perhaps because they had come from so little or because they once had him and felt as if they could fly.

He didn't say he thought something in both of them died with the ending of the First World War, but she has always known what he meant, and he spent the entire dinner that night at his home with his hand holding hers underneath the table while his dad couldn't even speak. While his mom cried into the rationed potato soup in the plain white china since the delicate, expensive plates of glass and crystal and elaborately painted flowers had been auctioned. 

The next morning, he took her to the Organas, kissed her forehead, and told her he _promised_ he would bring her to a happy home. And he did, so maybe family can be the result of a war. Maybe it could be the cause. 

Ben's grandma, God rest her beautiful soul, was a Jewish woman with heart and soul and candor. He will think of her face from the photograph when he wears the face of an enemy in the district where some Jews will wish themselves dead, and he will repeat the doctrine he's swore, pray to God for apathy and mercy because _he renounces this war._ And he's so sorry. 

Poe hugged Ben because the next month he would be off to somewhere Poe was too afraid to name out loud, and then he was gone himself -- Warsaw -- his hands clenched into fists and his eyes empty -- "I'll write you," he swore. "Rey, sweetheart, Ben, buddy, I will."

"I know."

"Poe --"

"No, no, _no_ ," he hushes, and Leia, the wry chaperone she is, she heads into the house with Ben with an inconspicuous, bittersweet smile. Were she and Han ever that young? "Rey, sunshine, love," he called her, "I'm coming back, and we're gonna get married someday. You're going to look so beautiful, Rey; I can _see_ it."

" _Poe,_ " she cried, and they've got only a second as the grate of wheels on the road orchestrate his departure: the last call and the desperate, needy way they fall into each other's arms. They kiss and it's fire; it's a promise, and none can say how long they've wandered while the world beckons its end. With his tongue against the roof of her mouth, she breathes his air and sighs as if life depends on it: his, for the second she goes weak, feels faint and lightheaded and starry-eyed and like she's already lost him, he pulled away from her. 

True to fashion, he didn't properly say good-bye.

And she repeated it to herself: _I renounce this war._ She marches. She mails leaflets. She volunteers and learns her hunger again with the rest of the country, joins a knitting circle in the name of keeping her hands busy so her mind doesn't wander to him wherever he is under the open, weeping sky. Him and each letter he's ever sent to her that she keeps with her few worldly possessions, the sentences and fragments and vague thoughts of eleven years in the making of their life together. 

Ben often finds her in her room with the candles still lit, old letters crushed between her fingers, tears dried on her sleeping cheeks. Those are the mornings she wakes to fresh flowers on her vanity, though, so repeat it again: all wars are the same war. 

Two weeks go by in silence, and while she sits next to Han that night, the radio drifts from a monotonous song to a list of the wounded, the mournful names of the dead. 

"Did you know him?" she asks Ben quietly. As she hovers outside of his door, creases her hands in the folds of her plain, old-fashioned dress, doesn't quite meet his eyes because he _knows_. "The Oxford professor who --"

"Yes," he interrupts her. "We both did." So perhaps she doesn't have to say it outloud -- the guilty thought and the mournful one. 

"Was Poe -- was he going back to the university? Do you think he might have had plans to?"

"No," Ben murmurs, in turn regretful because that would have been so much safer than Austria. Than Berlin. But mostly he's guilty because as he packs, he folds the bright red armband into a hidden compartment into his trunk, sticks a small slip of paper as contraband under the insert in one of his shoes l. 

He wears the unassuming mask of _spy_ like it's so easy for him to disparage his family or supply false information about the Allies in this chess match; he's already spent too long at home, and he must have known even as a boy how the world would go, why he chose the German language over the French, why he's so readily able to wield his armor like a weapon, defenses and identifies crafted with his politically- and criminally-inherited silver tongue. 

He must have known there would be a betrayal on either side. He'll never forget the way Poe's eyes flashed that one night in disappointment. In grief, because _you support him. How could you?_

 _No--_ "Poe would have told you if that was his intention. It's too soon to fear the worst, Rey."

"In this world?" she almost laughs. 

"Trust me. He'll send word within the month. And then if he doesn't," Ben tells her, so sure because he watched the love struck fool write this girl a letter every night for months, "then you can worry. It isn't a problem until it's a problem."

She goes dancing one night. A turn around the ballroom with Han and then with Ben, his tall, awkward limbs so graceful it's a marvel Poe ever was able to teach him to dance. He's quiet and he's intent -- he could be falling in love with the sure way she carries herself, or he could be Icarus in love with the inevitable tragedy -- he knows, and Poe doesn't -- blinded by love, so sure of the happy ending it's _asinine_.

Rey was dead in Ben's arms for twenty-eight seconds. 

Motionless and still and dead until she awoke to an airless gasp and her ribs going all convex. The fits have been getting worse and worse, and he's known it was consumption since his dad once made her laugh so hard she started to cough and couldn't stop. Excused herself away like it was a jape even with the blood bright red on her sleeve and a rosy stain on her lips. 

"Why doesn't he know?" he demanded, grabbing her arm more roughly than he intended in the corridor. The heat from her skin could have burned a hole straight through him, straight to hell. 

"He sees me living," she told him. But to her, saying the words with as much contrition as is accustomed to angels, there is more meaning to her in that than there is to him. "He sees _me_. He always has. Not my illness, not my poverty."

"He'll see you right to your grave," he hisses, still holding fast onto her arm. "He'll wake up one morning and you'll be dead, sweetheart."

"Don't call me that," she murmurs without much bite. "I _know_ ," she tries instead. "I know the doctor believes I'm a few months dead already on borrowed time. But I know Poe will fight harder to come back to me if he believes I'll be here waiting for him, too."

"That's egotistical."

"It's true," she insists with quiet, frantic urgency. "He can be so reckless, and if he believes he has nothing else to lose --"

"The only thing he can lose is you. And he's going to. What if he comes home tomorrow and you're dead on the floor?"

"Your right hand, I'll be bloody dead on the floor. Don't be absurd."

"Don't be naïve!"

Of course, the fight escalated. But she won the quarrel when her knees gave out, when her pulse thrummed so loudly under her skin that he could hear it as he carried her to her bedroom. 

Two days later, and each hour echoes silence. She knits and she prays, and she wishes she only won't die until she can see him one more time. In the quiet of too desperate and too lonely. Under the dark, starless sky. 

Ben leaves quietly in the middle of the night, so good at his job that Han isn't sure who he's betraying, his slimy, double-crossing, no good, perfect son. 

Leia cries. 

"I'm getting up," Rey promises as he knocks on her door, but without much ado, he walks in, crosses his arms to look at her so scathingly she'll whither.

"Don't bother," he says dryly -- so nonchalant that it's heartbreaking. The elusive way men display their affection. "You could over-exert yourself and die. Stay cold."

"It is winter," she points out even though it won't make a difference. 

She goes to the grocer and haggles price deductions with grace. She mails more leaflets and wishes the United States would wand up; she --

\-- receives her unopened, mailed, carefully addressed letters back on that Thursday. She tries to convince herself that if he were dead, she would know. Someone would think to tell her. She might feel it. 

She barely eats but sleeps even less, most days. Han casually suggests she ought to prepare herself, for three months stretch into six. Into nine. She's running out of time, and she turns righter without any celebration -- people are sleeping all over the world, and she walks her scuffed brown shoes down the familiar, well-worn pavement towards the orphanage. Walks where she was once so sure she'd find him at the end of the path, his hat in his hands and his heart in hers: were they ever really that young? Carefree, hopeful children?

Misunderstanding Rey's tears, an old woman passing by spies the silver ring on her finger ("It's yours. It's always been yours; he's been carrying it since his first day at Oxford, even if he didn't know what it meant yet. Take it, take it and just _go_ , Rey; this is so hard, and I -- I'm leaving. _Good-bye._ ") and softly asks if Rey's lost someone. A husband.

So when she receives the telegram and just about can't breathe -- specks of light in her peripheral vision like flickers of starlight through smoke-heavy skies, like the Blitz _again_ ; it's catastrophe and this war as the same as all wars -- the ones who don't make it home but the ones who do. Three months of no word, and then a small scrap of paper with uniform writing: his words like a lifeline, like the distance between space and _almost_ is only another letter. Each promise he's ever made her and kept. 

_I'm alive. I love you. Paris. Yours, P.D._

She's still clutching the telegram as she sits inside the church in their pew. Begs her gratitude and forgiveness for doubting, for being unable to escape the inexplicable fear that she's still already lost him. That time is running out.


	4. four

_Rey,_

_I close my eyes, and you aren't dead._

_Everyone who came to your funeral, I curse them and their damned gall to mourn and weep and cry for the beautiful, smart woman who_ was,  _the girl they never really knew like we did, like you had almost lived to tell the tale of what a triumph meant for everyone sworn to pacifism and intent on blood._

_Like you could have denoted the idea of love in sentiments more sweeping than gestures; I fell, and you were graceful enough to pretend you hadn't known._

_I'm sorry Poe couldn't speak at your funeral._

_I wish I had said I loved you more than once._

_With Much Ado About Nothing,_

_Ben_

 

.

 

"Juliet," he whispered. And then like he hadn't, he glances furtively around, curls a hand through his hair like  _Jesus, doll, just open up the window_ before he stoops down for another pebble to toss. "Juliet!"

"I will call the officers!" she hushes down at him. "It's not even four! It's late, Poe!"

"It's early," he contradicts, wincing up at her through the lamplight, past the candle that casts her in an eery golden glow. "I need to talk to you, Rey. Does love wait for the sun? Can love fathom the tide, Rey?"

"Are you holding flowers?"

"Come on," he hoarsely shouts. He's far too charming than his persona has any careful right to be here; he's so carelessly disheveled. He's roses at midnight. "I'm saving you, Juliet. Get dressed. Or don't."

"And pack a bag?" she teases, forcing something light-hearted into her tone because he has to be joking. This won't be him prepared to ask her to marry him, not on a warm Tuesday night in August where his dreams are as bright as fireflies. "Catch a train with you? Are we away to a new life in America?"

"Rey," he says, looking strangled.

By desperation or loneliness, she doesn't know, but it's all there when she opens the door, when instantly,  _help_ , he's holding one of her hands. Spreading his fingers through hers like chaste and platonic don't have to be synonymous; he  _loves her_. More than he knows regret. His eyes are the sun, and he's speaking at her so imploringly intent, oh, no. Oh, help.

"We need to discuss some things, Rey."

"You're scaring me," she replies pensively, trying to shrug away. "You're  _really_ scaring me. I should go back in."

"No," he begins to beg. Straightening up, though, he thinks better of it. He thinks the darkness really hurts his eyes, and he thinks:   _help_. What had she said moments ago? America? "We could both go," he whispers. 

"You can't come in."

"To America," he swears. "I'll take you to New York. We could go dancing --"

"Poe," she sighs, drawing away from the utter hurt that paints its way over his face. Don't say it:  alcoholic. "We can't."

"We can, dear."

"You don't mean that," she says, trying to change his mind, to make him see what has her jaw set and her arms defiantly crossed. 

"I think I do."

"You're drunk," she tells him. "You're  _drunk._ If you come here in this state again, Poe, I swear I'll --"

"Rey," he interrupts her, or rather, he  _meant_ to be that amiable about it. Instead, he kisses her.

Softly.

So softly that the moment is something precious and reserved, tentative and trying. It's Keats, and  _I see a lily on thy brow with anguish moist and fever-dew, and on thy cheeks a fading rose fast withereth, too._ It's rather sweet, actually, until she slaps his cheek and  _hates_ him for it, for only being brave when it's into his cups and doesn't see her in the daylight and would have her perpetually waiting; God. If You're there.

"What have you got to say for yourself, then?" she demands of him, all crossed arms and autumn's sweat. The heat of her skin that is amplified, raging, and secret --- don't say it:  tuberculosis. That struck, dazed look on his face as he cups his sore, stubbled cheek,

"Rey, dear."

"That wasn't kind," she says, her first kiss like the taste of something bitter. "I can't understand your mumbling, Poe. Speak up."

"I see lilies," he says, so certain he'll marry her, soon. "Rey, I see roses."

"I'm going inside."

"Doll," he calls her. It curls his mouth and makes him grin. It makes him frown, then, because to see her standing here in white and in agony kills him. It literally kills him. He's bleeding into his hands, and his abdomen is gushing broken red.

 

.

 

Soon, really. Only a few months from now, only because the world slowly begins its attempts at healing, oh. 1945.

Ben stares down at his polished brown shoes, he stands when he hears her start down the stairs only to flit back up and retreat. Shoes that clack against the wood and move deliberately -- blue, he's almost sure. Her blue shoes with the heels that made her taller than Poe before. He checks his pocket watch again and again and again; he resists the urge to holler up at her that they'll be late when  _he_ would have waited however long, he's sure. He knows. Three minutes, eight, seventeen.

"Rey," he begins aloud, rehearsing it before he can realize his intentions. "I --"

"I'm ready."

"Great," he says. And because she's just looking at him, red lipstick, her upswept hair, that green dress with the white collar:  dated, four-years-old, sweet. "That's great," he repeats, and it is going through the motions. It a loss she still doesn't know how to define or attain with the semblance of overcoming.

The book of  _Ecclesiastes_ and how the sun is always rising;  _I dreamed of you, once_ , Ben doesn't tell her, and she doesn't ask him about his interests or his childhood or his experiences or his mind. She doesn't ask about Poe anymore, either, so no one is more surprised than he is when she reaches for his hand and holds on, holds tight, hopes the film won't absolve guilt or have them guilty for the joy that comes at the expense of a war and all of its costs, this motion picture  _State Fair_. 

"I've never been," she says, after, and he doesn't swear he will take her, no; he can't. Poe probably had.


End file.
